


i'll give you the world (but you've given me the universe)

by lovelines (Alliwantisthetruth)



Category: BLACKPINK (Band)
Genre: (bc of course), + a bit of post debut, Canon Compliant, F/F, Fluff, Jisoo makes an appearance, Trainee Days
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-04-24 12:01:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14355024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alliwantisthetruth/pseuds/lovelines
Summary: the first time jennie sees park chaeyoung isn't really memorable. the next few times either. and then, slowly, park chaeyoung becomes memorable.canon. from trainee to freshly debuted, jennie falls in love.





	i'll give you the world (but you've given me the universe)

**Author's Note:**

> there's a severe lack of blackpink fics in here so i just wrote my own i guess. tbh i don't really know what this is, i just wanted to post it. 
> 
> uhhhhh fluff. lisoo are kind of very secondary characters. sorry girlies. next time :(

The first time Jennie meets Chaeyoung isn’t really memorable. There’s no special connection, nothing that makes her think _oh, this one, this one will be something._ She’s two years into her trainee life and already she’s seen plenty come and go. Jennie’s learned not to attach herself too much to the ebb and flow of people here. Faces become familiar until suddenly they’re gone and she has to claw at the memories that fade away one by one. Unless Jennie meets up with them after they've left, in which case an hour goes where they awkwardly hang out together, Jennie’s presence an eternal reminder of the other’s failures. 

She’s never seen ex-trainees more than once after their departure. 

So she tries to only latch on to the ones who’ll stay, but eventually she stops even that. They’re young, all of them, too young, no one can tell how they’ll turn out. They’re all in limbo, blind to the future, stuck waiting on a decision that may never come. No one is safe, no one knows if they’ll make it. 

Jisoo’s probably going to make it. Lalisa, the little dancer who always impresses the staff, might make it. Jennie…might. Maybe. Perhaps. She doesn’t like to think too much about it, prefers to concentrate on right now, on getting better so that she might make it.

They all might, but they just as well might not. 

Jennie’s learned not to get too unnerved whenever a new face pops up. 

This face is charming, with bright eyes and a brighter smile, but Jennie doesn’t let it get to her. 

"Hello," the other girl says, once she’d bowed. "My name is Park Chaeyoung. Please take care of me."

Jennie knew her name already. Jisoo had let it slip at lunch. 

"Did you hear?" She’d asked between two bites of kimbap. "A new trainee’s coming in. Park Chaeyoung, I think?" 

Jennie had shrugged. She’d gotten used to that kind of gossip already, but Jisoo continued on. 

"She got first place at her audition, apparently. And she speaks English. I heard she’s from Australia. Isn’t that were you’re from?" 

"New Zealand," Jennie had said, slowly. "I studied for a few years in New Zealand. It’s different."

Jisoo had hummed and continued to chatter away for the rest of the lunch, but Jennie had stopped paying attention to her. Australia isn’t New Zealand, of course, but still. It’s close. 

It’s not like there are a lot of trainees from there, either. Perhaps she had been curious. And perhaps Jisoo had known that, because once they’d gone back to dance practice she had pounced on the only unfamiliar face in the room and cheekily dragged her back to where Jennie was. 

And now the girl is awkwardly waiting for Jennie to introduce herself as well. 

She clears her throat. "Jennie," is all she says before she turns away and starts stretching. 

Behind her, she hears Jisoo’s laugh. "Don’t mind her," the older girl tells Chaeyoung. "She’s just really focused." 

Jennie wants to roll her eyes. Once class starts, Jisoo’s jokes and laughs will stop, and she’ll be just as serious as Jennie is. They all have to be serious, if they ever want to make it. 

Class starts. Chaeyoung dances well. She moves like she knows what she’s doing. 

More than that, though. Jennie notices something more than the fluid moves Chaeyoung does. 

Chaeyoung has charisma. It’s barely there, peeking out for a few seconds at a time, but it’s enough for Jennie to note the dance instructor’s approving eyes when she looks at her. 

Stage presence. The x factor. How many times had the big boss said, whether on live television or to his trainees, that what made YG artists so special was their stage presence, their way of presenting themselves, their aura? How many times had he torn down trainees because they just didn’t have that special little thing? 

Charisma—or is it the potential of charisma? Whichever it is, the girl has it. 

She wonders if that’s what won Chaeyoung her the audition. 

Jennie looks at her and thinks she might make it. She thinks she might more than make it.

It’s her instinct, her sense—yet another thing the boss had always harped on—that’s telling her, from the bottom of her gut, that Chaeyoung’s going to debut, and she’s going to do well. 

It’s based on absolutely nothing else than the two hours of dancing practice but Jennie’s willing to bet almost anything that she’s right. 

She tries to push down the—unfounded, ridiculous—jealousy creeping up inside of her. Tries to let her limbs go on autopilot, following the beat with the ease of months of practice. 

Chaeyoung continues to sparkle in her twists and turns. 

…

The next few times Jennie sees Park Chaeyoung—alias Roseanne, alias Rosie, as she likes to tell any trainee that has a decent enough command of the English language—are by slices of two or three minutes. Brief greetings exchanged in corridors, when Jennie’s headed to see her rap teacher and Chaeyoung has vocal practice to run to. Chaeyoung makes a point to smile brightly at her each time they meet and Jennie can’t help but return a small, tiny, minuscule smile. 

Jisoo sees Chaeyoung more often, since they sometimes have vocal practice together. She says her voice is something else; says she’ll make it, and Jennie’s never heard Jisoo sound so sure. 

When Jennie scoffs and says that they don’t know anything for sure, jealousy still very present in her gut, Jisoo only shrugs at her. 

"You haven’t heard her sing," is all she says. "She’s meant to be on stage."

Jennie knows. She hasn’t heard the girl sing, but she knows. She’s seen her. 

The green monster sinks its claws deeper, and Chaeyoung keeps smiling at her. Jennie wants her to tell her to stop, stop being so friendly, stop thinking she can get close to her, stop treating her like a friend. 

She’s being irrational, she’s being unfair, Chaeyoung is just being nice-

But something about Chaeyoung makes her tick. Makes her itch, and she can’t shake it off. 

She doesn’t say anything. Never says anything, because at the same time she does not want Chaeyoung to stop. She wants to tell Chaeyoung to stop but she also wants her to continue on, to smile at her with her megawatt smile and with her flaming red cheeks squished together. 

She swallows down her words. Finds herself incapable of smiling back at Chaeyoung anymore, no matter how hard she tries. 

And one day she hears Rosie sing. She’s running late for practice and she’s hurrying her way down the corridors, speeding past practice room after practice room. 

She passes one with the door ajar and stops in her tracks. 

There’s someone singing. Singing amazingly well. Ridiculously—

Jennie isn’t surprised when she peers into the room to find Chaeyoung, eyes squeezed shut as she belts out a ballad. Of course it would be Chaeyoung. Who else?

Chaeyoung’s voice—

It makes its way to Jennie in waves. The low and somber notes hold her in an embrace, comforting yet sad. The high notes, shrill, climb their way up her ribcage and reverberate in her heart. 

Chaeyoung’s voice makes her think of a river, lilting and calm at times and yet strong and overflowing other times. Chaeyoung’s voice makes her think of a storm, of chaos, of sunlight, of cotton candy. 

Chaeyoung holds the universe in her voice. 

And the voice comes back in Jennie’s head. _She going to make it. She’s gonna make it._

Jennie ignores the other, smaller voice that whispers in a small part of her mind, _but wouldn’t you like to make it next to her?_  

… 

Chaeyoung gets into fights with other trainees. Cultural differences: sometimes Chaeyoung says something that was more than appropriate and sweet in Melbourne but comes off as rude in Seoul, and the other trainee will chew her out. And Chaeyoung, poor Chaeyoung doesn’t know what she did wrong, has to stand there with her innocent eyes open wide, has to stumble over apologies she doesn’t even mean because she just does not know. 

It’s Jennie’s job to go see her, because Australia and New Zealand aren’t as different as Melbourne and Seoul. She sits by the younger girl, watches her trying to calm herself down, watches her struggle against herself—and Jennie’s seen this enough times to know that Chaeyoung’s worrying herself to death, wondering if what she had said had really been that bad, if she had said something bad, if she had done something bad. 

That’s when Jennie knows to rest her head on the other’s shoulder. The youngest had been surprised the first time Jennie had done it, perhaps not as much as Jennie herself had been, but it’s become a force of habit. When Chaeyoung feels a little too homesick, a little too lost, Jennie lays her head in the curve of Rosie’s neck. She speaks in English, lets her tongue wrap around the little bit of New Zealand that still sticks to her, to try and remind the other girl of a place a bit closer to home. She talks about everything, she talks about nothing, she talks quietly and without thought to drone out Chaeyoung’s mind.

When Chaeyoung feels calmer—when she stops fidgeting and when, in turn, she buries her hair in Jennie’s head—Jennie will get up. Roseanne lets her go without a word, but tugs at her sleeve. A small tug, a small thank you that Rosie can’t push past her lips, but Jennie understands all the same. 

She wants to tell the younger girl that it’s good for her too, that sometimes she needs those moments. Those moments where she can say whatever she wants, whatever she feels like saying, no matter if she’s saying it right or wrong, because Chaeyoung will listen, yes, but she won’t comment. She’ll listen, she’ll let Jennie unravel whatever’s stuck to the corners of her mind. 

Jennie thinks that not many people have listened to her the way Rosie does. 

…

The years pass, each more or less similar to the precedent year. They train, they sweat, they cry, they suffer along with other hopefuls. Jennie keeps burying her head in the valley of Rosie’s neck and Chaeyoung keeps lightly laying her head on hers, threading her hand in Jennie’s hair sometimes. 

Rumors start flying around in the practice rooms. Rumors of a debut, of a girl group debut, only this time it seems serious, it seems real, something’s changed since the times where the to-be group was labeled "Future 2NE1" or "YG New Girl Group". 

This time, a name floats around with the rumors. 

_Pink Punk_. A hideous name, but Jennie wants it, wants it so much she’d dye her hair the brightest shade a pink if it could guarantee her a spot in. 

She’s trained for this for years. There won’t be a second chance. The next group would only debut at least three more years later, and Jennie doesn’t know if she can actually wait that long again. 

But then she turns her head and sees Chaeyoung practicing the choreography they’d had to learn a few days ago. Sees her twist and turn and shine so so so bright. That charisma, that shy sparkling thing that a few years ago only sometimes decided to appear, had now evolved into a supernova.

It’s crazy how much Chaeyoung comes alive when she performs. A born performer. Meant for the stage.

She’s going to make it. Chaeyoung has got to make it. 

Jennie almost thinks that she can’t make it without Chaeyoung, before she quickly smashes the thought away. Of course she can, she’s wanted this all her life, Chaeyoung won’t get in the way of what she’s always dreamed of. But if—if, incredibly unrealistic and unlikely—it happened, it wouldn’t feel the same. It would feel…empty. 

Jennie tries not to think about that too much. 

And one day she’s called into a meeting. Sitting at the conference table, next to her, are Jisoo, Lisa, and Rosie. 

Jennie knows. She knows what’s about to happen, can see the stacks of paper that have a dotted line on the last page before they’re even tossed their way. 

They’re debuting. All four of them. YG Entertainment’s new girl group. 

Not Pink Punk. _Blackpink_. 

That night, Jennie and Rosie sit next to each other and talk until the sun comes back up. Chaeyoung’s voice, all high and excited, makes Jennie want to stop talking, makes her want to curl up next to Rosie and listen to her for a change, and _oh—_

oh. 

Jennie falls in love. Or not. She had already started to fall a long time ago, maybe when she had seen Chaeyoung dance and had assumed what she had felt was jealousy, or maybe it really was jealousy, who knows. Maybe it had been when she had started to smile back at Rosie, maybe, maybe, maybe…

She doesn’t know when it had started. She only knows, as she listens to Chaeyoung talk and giggle and be so happy her heart almost bursts, that she could listen to Chaeyoung for a lifetime. 

...

She kisses Chaeyoung first, on the night of their first win. Inkigayo had been torture, because Chaeyoung had cried—of course she had cried—and Jennie had wanted absolutely nothing more in the world than to kiss away the tears that streaked her face, but she couldn’t, because they were backstage of Inkigayo, after their first win—their first win, on their _debut song_ , how to even react to that—but she wants to so bad. 

So she does it at night, when they’re back to their usual spot : backs against the wall, Jennie leaning on Rosie. Rosie is over the moon, her eyes are glittering, and Jennie looks up at those oh-so-expressive eyes, thinks that if she can hear the universe in her voice she can damn well see it in her eyes, and she brings her head up so that they’re face to face, and kisses her. 

Chaeyoung’s surprised, at first, and Jennie feels bad—what was she thinking, idiot, why did she do that—but then Chaeyoung kisses back, and Jennie looses sense of time, only focuses on the soft lips on hers, on the small sounds Chaeyoung makes, and _oh—_

oh. 

Oh, Jennie is so in love. 

…

Chaeyoung tells her she loves her first. Of course she does, because Chaeyoung is Chaeyoung and Jennie is Jennie and Jennie would have never in a thousand years told her first. Too much of a coward for that. 

Jennie tells her that she knows, and when Chaeyoung tilts her head back to laugh, Jennie tells her she loves her. 

Chaeyoung doesn’t answer, but she tugs on Jennie’s sleeve, so Jennie knows all the same. 

And suddenly Jennie’s laughing, and Chaeyoung’s started to laugh again, joining her, and both of them are sprawled on the floor, laughing about who knows what. 

Jennie thinks Chaeyoung has the entire universe not in her voice, or her eyes, but in her presence. 

_All for you_ , a voice in the back of Jennie’s mind whispers. 

All for her. She’s got the universe in the palm of her hands. 


End file.
